Harris and Trump are tied, poll finds. Here's why strategists say that's good for Democrats - eviltoast
  • The Snark Urge@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Harris’ campaign is younger than most of my groceries, while the next generation has been born and mastered sarcasm in the shadow of Trump’s seemingly endless campaign. Being tied this early should be devastating news for 45.

    • Irremarkable@fedia.io
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      4 months ago

      Especially since Harris isn’t exactly the most beloved figure in the dem world, if there even is such a thing at the moment.

      I’ll readily admit I was in the camp of thinking that Biden dropping now would be suicide. I am very happy to have been proven wrong so far.

      • MagicShel@programming.dev
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        4 months ago

        You and me both. The way the whole party has coalesced around Harris is a happy surprise. There has been so much infighting for so long and Kamala wasn’t really mentioned in all the push to remove Biden, and there was no consensus around anyone. I was sure it would be nothing but infighting until the convention and then begrudging acceptance.

        I couldn’t be happier to be wrong.

        • ZapBeebz_@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          My tin foil hat thought is that Biden waited so long to drop out partially to allow the party to rally behind a single candidate.

          • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
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            4 months ago

            I don’t think that’s remotely a tinfoil hat statement. If you look at Biden’s record in general, he’s the kind of guy who tends to say nothing while he quietly does the work to put an actual plan in place, and only acts when he knows he’s in a position to act effectively.

            It would be completely consistent with his past behaviour, and entirely the smart thing to do.

    • alvvayson@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      4 months ago

      Exactly. Democrats are falling in line and that’s to be expected. They already voted for her as VP, so they should have no objection to her as President.

      But independents and swing voters should still be undecided on her. Some might lean slightly towards her because she is younger and not a senile fascist, but overall, it should not be expected that they will support her at this stage.

      Polling in September will be more accurate.

      • Aniki 🌱🌿@lemmy.zip
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        4 months ago

        I refuse to believe there’s any swing voters in this election. Absolutely no one is 50/50 on Trump. The media just loves to parrot old talking points without any evidence these people actually exist. Stats are so easily fungible that you can make them say anything you want.

        • chicagohuman@lemm.ee
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          4 months ago

          There are plenty of people who have not learned or choose not to learn the details of Trump’s escapades.

          • Aniki 🌱🌿@lemmy.zip
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            4 months ago

            Do you have any evidence to support that?

            That’s precisely the media talking point I’m debunking. Either you watch Fox News or you don’t.

        • femtech@midwest.social
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          4 months ago

          I don’t think anyone that will vote for trump will turn but I do think that there are people that won’t vote that can be convinced to vote.

      • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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        4 months ago

        Well, I personally have some objections, as anyone should for any politician, but nothing that would prevent me from supporting her.

        • MagicShel@programming.dev
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          4 months ago

          I accepted after Obama that every President is going to do things I find reprehensible. It’s hard because I strongly believe in doing the right thing even if there is a cost. But as President you have to balance one kind of harm against another, sometimes using knowledge so secret you can’t justify your decision to the public.

          It becomes an act is faith that they are making the best choices they can, while also acknowledging the reality that they are human and will get it wrong sometimes.

          I have to say, though, that running against Trump makes supporting flawed actual humans so much easier.

  • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    TL;DR because they’re paid to say it’s going to be good for them while, in actuality, if the candidates were tied on election day Democrats would lose big due to gerrymandering and the electoral college.

    I am hopeful the outcomes improve, though.

    • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      This is the very first round of polling and she’s already doing better than Biden could have dreamed.

      • Icalasari@fedia.io
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        4 months ago

        Plus, the polls keep underestimating the turn out for Democrats ever since Trump’s first term

        • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          This is just not true. I’ve seen it repeated several times today. Not sure where you picked it up but its patently false.

          Biden under-performed his polling across the board by 4%. He did worse than the polls projected him to do.

          It should have been a barn-burner. It was a squeaker.

          • Icalasari@fedia.io
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            4 months ago

            Picked it up from another post where the poster was posting the numbers and theorizing that polls got less accurate because they are getting mostly landlines as people don’t tend to answer unknown numbers on their smart phones

            • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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              4 months ago

              That’s correct. Very few people under 50 answer the phone if they don’t recognize the number. Biden didn’t underperform, and definitely not by 8%. Doesn’t anyone remember Georgia?

              Black women (and others) handed him an upset victory. Here’s the polls: Biden was supposed to win by a percent.

              https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2020/georgia/

              He won by half a percent:

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election_in_Georgia

            • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              Yeah, whoever that is, dont listen to them. They do not know what they are talking about.

              Here is the right answer:

              https://lemmy.world/post/15291274?scrollToComments=true

              Biden’s results came in at an average of -4 to where polling in Oct/November told us he would be. Trump’s results came in at an average of +8 to what we expected from the same polling window.

              The data we have says that polls currently over estimate Democratic performance in presidential elections. In estimating polling advantage going into this, we should give Trump +8 like we saw in 2020 (we saw a similar number in 2016). We should give Harris a 0 (no advantage/ disadvantage).

              This means that Democrats need to be +8 on Trump in the aggregate to break even. I think this is very very doable, but consider that Biden has been -1 to -10 on Trump for over 500 days. This would translate to a -13 to minus -23 polling disadvantage for Biden. Its why everyone who knows anything has been saying Biden doesn’t stand a chance since December.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Because she’s polling higher than Biden. That’s the reason. In a few days we’ll have better data. If equal numbers continues into a trend then that’s good because she’s already brought people back on side. Obviously if her numbers go above Trump that’s just great news all around. But this is breathing life into what was a dead campaign.

    • vividspecter@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      The latest polls are now showing Harris slightly ahead (even to 4% lead). But it’s way to early to make any strong conclusions.

      I’m certainly looking forward to their election predictor coming back up once the nominee is confirmed.

      • istanbullu@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        it’s just one poll, could be noise. pollsnfrom the last few months consistently showed trump ahead of harris.

        next 3-4 weeks will give a good overview with multiple polls.

    • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      538, by design, lags behind the latest polling, because they’re intentionally smoothing out the numbers. Trends - if they’re real - will take time to express themselves as a result.

      The key takeaway here is that these numbers are still very good for the Dems, because Trump is at his absolute ceiling in popularity. He’s coming off of a strong debate performance and nearly being killed. That’s as good as it gets for him. The American public isn’t going to grow to like him as they get to know him more; he’s dominated political discourse non-stop for the last eight years. There’s no room left for him to grow.

      Kamala, on the other hand, has a lot of room to grow. That doesn’t guarantee that she will, but it puts all the initiative in her hands. There’s still time for the Dems to play this wrong, but also a lot of space for them to play it right.

  • XIIIesq@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I’d like to know what the Lemmings that didn’t endorse Biden stepping down are thinking now.

    • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.org
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      4 months ago

      I’d like to know what the Lemmings that didn’t endorse Biden stepping down are thinking now.

      I was one of them, so I’ll answer your question as honestly as I can. I was against it only because the argument seemed like the next phase of anti-Biden (stealth pro-Trump) propaganda:

      Sleepy Joe -> Hunter’s Laptop -> “Genocide Joe” -> Biden’s too old -> Biden had one bad debate and should drop out

      While some of the criticism was perfectly valid, the fact that it was being constantly drummed and amplified by the “usual suspects” prevented me from hearing the argument in anything but bad faith and left me to assume the intention was to inject chaos into the democratic side of the election. I still feel the “usual suspects” were operating as described, but broken clocks and all that, you know?

      Now that it’s happened (regardless of whether I feel Biden was forced into it) and everyone is actually coalescing around VP Harris, I’m willing to admit I was wrong.

      While I wasn’t excited for Biden (nothing against him, he’s done a great job and I’m sure would have continued to do so), I am energized by having someone younger and more energetic who will continue the work started in the current administration. It appears I’m not alone in that and am glad to see support for Harris coming in.

      As long as we don’t nitpick, single-issue, and in-fight ourselves to defeat between now and November and actually line up behind the presumed candidate, I’m optimistic Harris is the right choice.

      You were right and I was wrong. There. Did you ever expect to hear me say such a thing?

    • Moobythegoldensock@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      I was skeptical of the party’s ability to muster up a good candidate with Biden dropping out this late. And most of all, I wanted it to be Biden’s decision, not his party abandoning him.

      Harris is coming out strong and gives me great confidence, though. So I respect Biden’s decision and am excited to vote for Harris, while I’d have settled to vote for Biden.